PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island remains second in the New England region for hotel occupancy rates and has seen a 6 percent revenue per room growth for 2012 so far, according to numbers from Smith Travel Research presented at Wednesday’s hospitality industry outlook summit.

“We’re still expecting to see growth [in the lodging industry] and you’ll see that in Rhode Island as well,” said Rachel Roginsky, principal of Pinnacle Advisory Group, a national hospitality consulting firm. “I do have some positive news.”

The Rhode Island Hospitality Association’s Hospitality Trends Summit, part of its excellence in business series, was held at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

Rhode Island’s 2011 occupancy rate was 61.2 percent behind just Massachusetts which has a 65.8 percent rate that Roginsky said is driven by the Boston market. The Ocean State’s 2010 occupancy rate was 60.3 percent.

Rhode Island remained second in revenue per available room at $70.05, once again behind Massachusetts at $91.33.

The bad news is that the state showed the least growth in revenue increases from 2010 to 2011 across New England at 4 percent. While the state growth this year so far looks good, New England’s average growth has been 8 percent to date in 2012.

For August, Rhode Island reached a 62.5 percent occupancy.

Comparatively, the United States occupancy rate, which hovered around 63.3 percent in better economic times, was 60 percent for 2011.

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